[1.0.5] TAC Life Support v0.11.2.1 [12Dec]

[Qberticus]

After using 0.9 for a bit I've only found one real problem. The increase in the number of units of Oxygen makes transferring it using the fuel balancer or ship manifest very slow. This is mainly a quality of life issue and not an actual bug. However, it may necessitate an option to transfer beyond x100 in the fuel balancer.

Also, I'd just like to note my appreciation for your work, thank you.

[TaranisElsu]

I created an issue here: https://github.com/taraniselsu/TacLifeSupport/issues/24 to get some feedback on resource balancing. I would appreciate it if some of you would take a look and let me know what you think.

I will be continuing to work on it over the next few days, and I hope to finish it before KSP 0.24 drops.

[BadLeo]

Is anyone experiencing weird drops off energy charge after coming back from EVA with TAC 0.9?

Never mind, the issue was caused by an old cfg file from 0.8 that was not deleted by KSPModAdmin when I de-installed it to install 0.9.

Edit: Also, I checked out the issue on github, but I do not have an account there to comment. I just want to state that I agree with the position of qberticus, but there's something that came to my mind right when I read it: the parts supposed to be loaded with several hundred kilograms of supplies are far too small and balanced, when it should be bulky. After all, It's not only about caring food, but about processing it, minimally, at least, and storing it conveniently. Food should get rotten, and water, to an extent, too, thus creating even more waste and waste water. Storing food for a hole year should not be simple.

Edited July 16, 2014 by BadLeo

[JeffreyCor]

Found a problem that I haven't seen reported, so apologies if I missed it. pre-release of 0.9 causes the science lab from KSPI to no longer function. After installing 0.9 no functions on the lab will work other than turning the lights on and off. Looks like something is conflicting someplace in this new version.

[tygoo7]

How well do you think this will work with 0.24 with the "Rescue the Kerbonaut" contracts?

[munseeker]

the parts supposed to be loaded with several hundred kilograms of supplies are far too small and balanced, when it should be bulky. After all, It's not only about caring food, but about processing it, minimally, at least, and storing it conveniently. Food should get rotten, and water, to an extent, too, thus creating even more waste and waste water. Storing food for a hole year should not be simple.

It's actually not a bad idea: Have the food containers use electricity - after all they have to somehow at least provide a stable environment for food storage.

Another way to make things a bit harder is to make the recyclers and scrubbers use more electricity and also make them heavier. That's something I did with my greenhouse mods - frankly, they are still too light and I will adjust that with the matching update for TACLS 0.9

[munseeker]

How well do you think this will work with 0.24 with the "Rescue the Kerbonaut" contracts?

It sounds like the Kerbals marooned in space will not become "real" until you get into physics range - so I'd expect that the TACLS plugin will not know about them until you get there.

[spec10]

are the legs on the integrated module base in 0.9 static by design or are they supposed to be retractable (the telescopic design suggests they should be), because they aren't for me. I like the concept of the base part, but it's too wide for transport on my usual lifter with extended legs.

[BudgetHedgehog]

are the legs on the integrated module base in 0.9 static by design or are they supposed to be retractable (the telescopic design suggests they should be), because they aren't for me. I like the concept of the base part, but it's too wide for transport on my usual lifter with extended legs.

I believe you meant to post this in a different thread, probably the MKS thread.

[spec10]

whoops, yeah. too many open tabs and even used the tac-ls version number when I meant mks 18.2, sorry

//edit: if someone's interested, there was some relevance to tac-ls in my problem after all. I pulled the GameData from GitHub without getting the TacLifeSupport.dll. That messed things up. Realized it when the toolbar button wasn't available.

Edited July 16, 2014 by spec10

[Rakh]

It sounds like the Kerbals marooned in space will not become "real" until you get into physics range - so I'd expect that the TACLS plugin will not know about them until you get there.

They don't come off rails until you get into physics range.

TACLS calculates consumed life support by, as far as I'm aware, comparing the time the object went *on* rails to the time it comes off rails. So the question is, how will TACLS interpret the fact that the object was never off rails to begin with? If it treats the objects creation as the moment it goes on rails for the first time and the computes the consumed life support when you get in range, we could end up with a lot of dead kerbals...

[TaranisElsu]

whoops, yeah. too many open tabs and even used the tac-ls version number when I meant mks 18.2, sorry

//edit: if someone's interested, there was some relevance to tac-ls in my problem after all. I pulled the GameData from GitHub without getting the TacLifeSupport.dll. That messed things up. Realized it when the toolbar button wasn't available.

*NEVER* just download the files from Github unless you want to muck around in the source. Download from the releases page instead (https://github.com/taraniselsu/TacLifeSupport/releases), and make sure that you click one of the green buttons. The file name should always be TacLifeSupport_<version#>.zip. Those are the only files that will contain the compiled DLL and all the other files where they need to be.

They don't come off rails until you get into physics range.

TACLS calculates consumed life support by, as far as I'm aware, comparing the time the object went *on* rails to the time it comes off rails. So the question is, how will TACLS interpret the fact that the object was never off rails to begin with? If it treats the objects creation as the moment it goes on rails for the first time and the computes the consumed life support when you get in range, we could end up with a lot of dead kerbals...

To clarify, "on rails" and "loaded" are two different things. A vessel is put "on rails" when: (1) you timewarp (at 5x and above), (2) the vessel exits the 2.4 km radius of the active vessel, or (3) you exit the Flight scene. Vessels are "loaded" if they are the active vessel or within 2.4 km of the active vessel. My mod actively works with any vessel that is loaded, even if you are time warping (i.e. on rails). It does not do anything if the vessel is unloaded. When the vessel is next loaded, it does the calculations to catch up consumption since the last time the vessel was loaded making it seem like it was working all along.

If a vessel is loaded for the first time, the mod sets the "last update time" to Now and starts tracking consumption. Until then, the mod does not "know" about the vessel and does not track consumption or do anything else with it.

TL;DR: A very long response to say that you have all the time in the world to get to those Kerbals (at least until the contract runs out), but once you come within range, you have to get them inside before their life support runs out.

[panarchist]

the parts supposed to be loaded with several hundred kilograms of supplies are far too small and balanced, when it should be bulky. After all, It's not only about caring food, but about processing it, minimally, at least, and storing it conveniently. Food should get rotten, and water, to an extent, too, thus creating even more waste and waste water. Storing food for a hole year should not be simple.

Depends on storage. Current space meals are designed to last 18 months, and effectively last about a year before significant taste and nutrient loss. "Several hundred kilograms" generally equals several hundred days of food - humans eat a bit less than 2kg of food per day (1.83kg "wet" weight - i.e. with water in it. If dehydrated, it's only 0.6kg). Kerbals are presumed to consume half as much, being half the size of a human. Let's be generous and say they eat 1kg of food per day. "Several hundred" kg would then equal "several hundred" days. When talking about a 2.5m diameter part holding food, that's quite a bit of storage space. You can figure on half the volume being structure and empty space for access, and half of it being actual containers of packaged food. That still leaves a lot of space.

Large container = 2.45m3 = 2,450L. Figure 1,225L (1.225m3) of actual food, and food with packaging is about 0.8kg/L according to NASA. Packaged food (NASA) masses 350kg per cubic meter, meaning that container can realistically have at least 428kg of packaged food, which is enough to feed 1 kerbal for 428+ days (actually 468 days if we don't round kerbal consumption) or 3 kerbals for about 140 days each. If they were eating STS or ISS food, it would still be good at 140 days, though probably not at 428 days.

Water is probably fine so long as it's got some sort of antimicrobial agent to treat it - water doesn't "go bad" per se.

[TaranisElsu]

Depends on storage. Current space meals are designed to last 18 months, and effectively last about a year before significant taste and nutrient loss. "Several hundred kilograms" generally equals several hundred days of food - humans eat a bit less than 2kg of food per day (1.83kg "wet" weight - i.e. with water in it. If dehydrated, it's only 0.6kg). Kerbals are presumed to consume half as much, being half the size of a human. Let's be generous and say they eat 1kg of food per day. "Several hundred" kg would then equal "several hundred" days. When talking about a 2.5m diameter part holding food, that's quite a bit of storage space. You can figure on half the volume being structure and empty space for access, and half of it being actual containers of packaged food. That still leaves a lot of space.

Large container = 2.45m3 = 2,450L. Figure 1,225L (1.225m3) of actual food, and food with packaging is about 0.8kg/L according to NASA. Packaged food (NASA) masses 350kg per cubic meter, meaning that container can realistically have at least 428kg of packaged food, which is enough to feed 1 kerbal for 428+ days (actually 468 days if we don't round kerbal consumption) or 3 kerbals for about 140 days each. If they were eating STS or ISS food, it would still be good at 140 days, though probably not at 428 days.

Water is probably fine so long as it's got some sort of antimicrobial agent to treat it - water doesn't "go bad" per se.

Where did you get your numbers? The sources I found vary a lot, but what seems to be the most recent one (http://ston.jsc.nasa.gov/collections/trs/_techrep/CR-2004-208941.pdf, Table 4.3.7) gives 0.66 kg/CM-d for food dry mass, 1.37 kg for "as shipped" and 2.38 kg for "as consumed" (after being rehydrated).

I posted my numbers here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aioc9ek3XAvwdGNsRlh3OVhlbTFBR3M4RW0zLUNTRFE&usp=sharing

And I created a place to discuss the balancing here: https://github.com/taraniselsu/TacLifeSupport/issues/24

P.S. water doesn't "go bad", but it can pick up flavors from the storage container that gives it a strange taste. And probably contains stuff that you don't want to ingest.

[BadLeo]

very good explanation

Well, the way you put the things, it makes sense. And dehydrated food not even needs that much logistis to be maintained/processed. I think, then, that the main problem to be faced could not be actually directly related with TAC. I mean, there's no cost to load a rocket with a year worth of food, and it takes literally no time to assembly it, unless you're using MCE and KCT. This means logistics are not a problem for KSP as it is to real life space programs. That doesn't mean nothing should be done to try and improve the mod even further, but that solutions might have to take a gamaplay approach, instead of a simulation one.

[toril]

Never mind, the issue was caused by an old cfg file from 0.8 that was not deleted by KSPModAdmin when I de-installed it to install 0.9.

Edit: Also, I checked out the issue on github, but I do not have an account there to comment. I just want to state that I agree with the position of qberticus, but there's something that came to my mind right when I read it: the parts supposed to be loaded with several hundred kilograms of supplies are far too small and balanced, when it should be bulky. After all, It's not only about caring food, but about processing it, minimally, at least, and storing it conveniently. Food should get rotten, and water, to an extent, too, thus creating even more waste and waste water. Storing food for a hole year should not be simple.

Actually if they irradiate the food you will pretty much never have to worry about spoilage also as most food is shipped to space dehydrated this is even less an issue. Simple filtering of the water will remove most if not all contaminates that can leach in, after all you know what your storing it in you should know the best way to filter it out. Storing food is much easier in space no need to worry about small animals etc as most of the food is stored in a vacuum and only brought in when needed etc. While spoilage may not be a problem if the food is correctly prepared, it will still lose its nutritional value after a certain amount of time and until they invent stasis fields I'm not sure that there is any way to combat that. But seeing as how that takes literally years its not much of a immediate problem .

Edited July 17, 2014 by toril

[Rakh]

To clarify, "on rails" and "loaded" are two different things. A vessel is put "on rails" when: (1) you timewarp (at 5x and above), (2) the vessel exits the 2.4 km radius of the active vessel, or (3) you exit the Flight scene. Vessels are "loaded" if they are the active vessel or within 2.4 km of the active vessel. My mod actively works with any vessel that is loaded, even if you are time warping (i.e. on rails). It does not do anything if the vessel is unloaded. When the vessel is next loaded, it does the calculations to catch up consumption since the last time the vessel was loaded making it seem like it was working all along.

If a vessel is loaded for the first time, the mod sets the "last update time" to Now and starts tracking consumption. Until then, the mod does not "know" about the vessel and does not track consumption or do anything else with it.

TL;DR: A very long response to say that you have all the time in the world to get to those Kerbals (at least until the contract runs out), but once you come within range, you have to get them inside before their life support runs out.

Great to hear! At least for the short term, I mean. Long term I hope to see (not necessarily from you, I'm sure your busy) some kind of TAC-dependent contracts extension that might change this to make more sense (like completely changing Kerbals stranded on EVA to kerbals stranded in ships with life support that will last until the deadline of the contract but without fuel).

[tygoo7]

TL;DR: A very long response to say that you have all the time in the world to get to those Kerbals (at least until the contract runs out), but once you come within range, you have to get them inside before their life support runs out.

Ah, that sounds good.

[Spin-Planet]

Hi, I just wonder about how much life support to take on long travels. The air and water can be recycled, (how much I not know yet). So to my understanding the smartest is to bring more food than water and oxygen? Anyone have a small idea how the supply should be distributed? Example; 1/2 food and 1/4 water and 1/4 oxygen. Sounds fair?

[BadLeo]

Hi, I just wonder about how much life support to take on long travels. The air and water can be recycled, (how much I not know yet). So to my understanding the smartest is to bring more food than water and oxygen? Anyone have a small idea how the supply should be distributed? Example; 1/2 food and 1/4 water and 1/4 oxygen. Sounds fair?

It all depends on how long your trip is planned to be. I generally carry more O2 and H20 than food, simply because kerbals can endure, by default, 30 days without food and 15 (I'm not sure of that one, have to check it) without water, but only 2 hours without air. But if you have a reasonable certainty about how much time the expedition will take, just add the resources accordingly.

[ExplorerKlatt]

30 days w/o food, 3 days w/o water, 2hrs w/o oxygen and electricity

[Rakh]

Any news on .24 comparability?

[Olympic1]

Any news on .24 comparability?

It works for me with the 0.9 pre-release #2

But expect an update for the recover vessel credits

[panarchist]

Where did you get your numbers? The sources I found vary a lot, but what seems to be the most recent one (http://ston.jsc.nasa.gov/collections/trs/_techrep/CR-2004-208941.pdf, Table 4.3.7) gives 0.66 kg/CM-d for food dry mass, 1.37 kg for "as shipped" and 2.38 kg for "as consumed" (after being rehydrated).

I posted my numbers here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aioc9ek3XAvwdGNsRlh3OVhlbTFBR3M4RW0zLUNTRFE&usp=sharing

And I created a place to discuss the balancing here: https://github.com/taraniselsu/TacLifeSupport/issues/24

Same document. Page 56, table 4.3.1. ISS Phase II numbers. Some, but not all ISS food is shipped up hydrated. The main issue here is that it really depends on one's assumptions. NASA gives different masses/densities based on the following:

- Fresh food, no packaging (e.g. grown onboard)

- Frozen

- "Fresh"/processed, with packaging

- "Fresh"/processed, with packaging, in a shipping container

- "Fresh"/processed, with packaging, in a shipping container, stored in an ISS-compatible rack system

So your numbers depend entirely on your assumptions. A container built solely to store food can reasonably hold at least half its volume in packaged foodstuffs, but probably not more than about 75% : 5-10% is needed for the module's internal structure, and another 10%-25% is needed for access space, to prevent the crew from having to stack and re-stack to access a particular package. If all the packages are identical, then much of that excess empty space can be ignored, but not all of it.

P.S. water doesn't "go bad", but it can pick up flavors from the storage container that gives it a strange taste. And probably contains stuff that you don't want to ingest.

Indeed, and it will - Skylab, Mir and ISS have all proven that. Fortunately it's moderated somewhat by smell saturation - you don't notice it so much after the first day. It's still a problem with all long-duration space missions in real life.

Side note: In case I wasn't clear earlier, I've been using TAC-LS for a while, (can't recall exactly how long - around last September) and find your numbers and assumptions totally within the realm of believability and "realism". It's a great mod - any comments or "complaints" I might have are totally of the nitpick variety. I'd love to see heat modeled, and Nitrogen, but those are very minor things.

Edited July 18, 2014 by panarchist
corrected comment on hydration. ISS food is a mix of hydrated and dehydrated food

[jpkerman]

Why do these resource mods complicate the issue with multiple components? They spend so much programming (and add multiple parts) to model consumption/recycle rates and spawn so many debates. Why not satisfy the resource need and simplify the issue with a 'all-in-one' Life Support container that containers whatever it is that a Kerbal needs to survive. One part, one resource, to represent all the LS balance the crew needs to consume/resupply or recycle. If you are running out of O2 is it a game concern that you still have room for 3 days of garbage? The fact you need a return or a resupply is the game issue. KSP has enough parts and debates about 'how much does 3 days of water in zero gravity really weight?'.